Kitsch Goes to College

Step off the elevator at the fourth floor of the William T. Jerome Library on the campus of Bowling Green State University, and the first person you’ll encounter is Batman.

But the citizens of Gotham City needn’t fear. Their favorite vigilante of the night hasn’t relocated to northwestern Ohio to take a job as a college librarian. This caped crusader is actually a cardboard cutout — a life-size replica of actor Michael Keaton as Batman in the 1989 hit movie of the same name.

Some would argue that the halls of academia are no place for two-dimensional comic book characters and other idle amusements. Nancy Down, head librarian at the Browne Popular Culture Library, would disagree. For more than a decade, she’s been the overseer of some 200,000 items in the Browne Library, which occupies the entire fourth floor of the Jerome Library. To read more, click here to subscribe. >>